Crossroads

I sometimes wonder..what is it like to be beautiful in the traditional sense? To never feel fat or ugly? To have thighs that are sleek and smooth and perfect? Even at my most fit when I was training in martial arts and competing I was never that kind of thin and never that kind of pretty. What's it like to have platinum blond hair and perfect breasts? What is it like to have men be nice to you simply because you are beautiful? To never have someone explain why their significant other ignores you in terms of "Well, he is truly just extremely shallow", assuming you will understand that shallow people would never find you attractive? What's it like to be beautiful to the beautiful people? And why would I wonder about it and question it, with all the hard lessons my life has held? Can it really still be important to me after all that has gone on? I guess it can because it still bothers me. It bothers me that I don't live up to my physical potential, that at one time my physical health was so very important to me and that I struggle to find the energy or mental capacity to keep all of that together right now. It bothers me that people would look at my overweight self and know right then and there that I am someone they do not care to know. It feels very unfair. And at the same time these are the same people that, frankly, at my most confident periods in my life, I would have no problem at all ignoring completely. Its interesting that at the times I most need to be able to say honestly "who gives a crap?" are the times I cannot do so. I hate being judged for my weight and my looks. I hate feeling bad from wanting the good opinion of people that I don't personally think well of, whose rejecton still stings even if I don't even like them. I hate that I let so much of that kind of crap into my soul to eat at me. When I feel good about the efforts I am making in my life, I am untouchable in the self esteem department. So I guess my angst should be telling me something. I am not happy with myself, so its easier to give credence to the opinions of others. Perhaps that is the big flag I am looking for that I am letting myself down needlessly. Something for me to think about anyway. But do you have any idea how it feels to contemplate starting to exercise again and to eat right, to make moves to not only improve my life, but to extend it when my son lies 6 feet down into a cold and dark grave? When nothing I did to save him was enough, yet here I am still trying to save myself? It feels wrong. It feel selfish and pointless, because at times I don't really care to extend my life..and when I catch myself thinking about doing so, there's this little battle going on in my head, each side of me chastizing the other, one for trying to live, the other for refusing to let me.